ON THE RIGHT: NRO tells Ted Cruz to stop acting all lawyerish on Amnesty

The National Review Online’s Charles C. Cooke isn’t falling for Ted Cruz’s big-city slick lawyer act when he talks about amnesty for illegals. Referring to Cruz’s Tuesday night debate performance, Cooke points out that despite reassuring his potential future voters he was, is, and never will be for a path to citizenship for current illegals, he’s taken what appears to be pretty much the opposite view in the past. So what’s it going to be, Mr. Lawyer-guy? Which version of Ted Cruz are we looking at?

Asked by Rubio whether he had ever fought “to support legalizing people that are in this country illegally?” — and, moreover, whether he would “rule out legalizing people that are in this country now?” — Cruz eschewed the “straight talk” for which he so desperately wants to be famous and retreated into the worst of lawyers’ poses: “I have never supported legalization,” he claimed, “and I do not intend to support legalization.” Then, for good measure, he suggested that Rubio was trying to confuse his viewers.

From the National Review Online comment section:

“NR continues to stump for the establishment candidate. Jeb! is out of the running, they can see that writing on the wall, so it’s time to raise the next in line.”

“Parsing words to deliberately deceive those who are not really paying attention is one thing. Parsing words so as not to be misinterpreted by those who are paying attention is another. Go Cruz.”

“I’ll agree this is the kind of thing keeping me from being an all out Cruz supporter. But here again is the drum I beat these days: Alot of us suspected that all of the NRO anti-Trumpery was not so much anti-Trump as it was anti-conservative. (“Trump’s not conservative!!!!” There, I said it for you.) That it was instead really just an effort to clear the way for a Bush or GOPe candidacy. Alot of us predicted that if Cruz started rising, the anti-Trump writers here would then turn anti-Cruz. Right on schedule, Mr. Cooke.”